Friday 6/7/19
This Friday, we started the day by going to North Hills high school and playing soccer. We spit into groups to make six teams for a round robin tournament which lasted around two hours. It was pretty muddy and cold outside, but everyone still had a fun time. The team I was on was the best team with two wins, no loses, and two ties.
Then, we split into groups again, but this time into two groups. We got to choose either environment or drama as the class we wanted to attend. I chose drama and had a drama class with the headmaster’s daughter as the teacher. In this class, we worked on improvisation and imagination. We did many activities to strengthen our acting skills. My favorite activities we did were one that was kind of like charades where we had to use a water bottle and act as if it was a another object and another where you had to say, “you will not believe what happen to me…” to start the improve scene. We had all this fun while the other group made bricks of straw and clay. We stayed at school for lunch and ate the school lunch, which was pasta with tomato or cream sauce
Then, we made the most original towers made of newspaper in small groups. The goal was to have the most original, freestanding tower. However, most groups did not follow the rules and used the provided tape to tape their tower to the roof and table for stability. Sadly, this time, I didn’t come out on top, but my group’s tower still got second place by default because only two towers were truly freestanding.
At night, we all went to a clubhouse in someone’s neighborhood and ate homemade pizza, which was delicious. We also tried many tasty Argentine candies. Lastly, we went to Agustin’s, or Chapo, to dance and listen to music.
–Landon
I woke up at 7:00am, like every morning, and got ready for school. They had told us that today would be our field day so we were to wear more comfy and casual clothes that we could run in. I ate croissants for breakfast with Maca then l left for school.
Once we arrived at school we congregated in our classroom and sat at the desks and talked for a little bit.
We played five games of soccer. My team unfortunately lost the last three games but we won the last two! The field was pretty muddy from the rain from the night before, but people only fell a few times. I was on the blue team but the other teams were red, pink, green, yellow, and orange. In the words of Samantha, “I played very, very hard during the many games.” I think her words describe how everyone was feeling throughout the morning through the rigorous rotation or teams.
Then we all came inside and sat around some tables to chat, rehydrate, and eat some snacks. Some people ate alfajores or other chocolatey snacks. Some people also played a fun game of basketball.
We then divided into two groups based on our interests. One group was an acting and drama group, and the other group was an environment group. I was in the environment group! We made homemade bricks through a non-polluting, all natural method. We broke up some straw into smaller pieces and then mixed it with soil. The other people in the group put on rain boots and stepped on the soil to mix it into a clay.
The last step of the brick making was to put the clay in wet molds to shape then and the let them dry! It is crucial that there are no air pockets in the bricks to make them as sturdy as possible. The bricks were left in the sunlight to harden.
Although I wasn’t in the acting group, I heard that they played improv games between each other and used props too.
After our classes we had lunch. It was mainly pasta, but other options included bread, salad, fruit, and, desserts such as alfajores.
Next we all hung around outside. People talked and played sports and got to know each other.
We proceeded to make a tall and creative paper tower out of newspapers. Unfortunately my team got disqualified because we taped our tower to the ceiling.
We ended off our Friday with more hangout time outside and inside. We then went home and spent time with our host family!
–Emily
Today we are staying at the school. I was late to school this morning, because my student wasn’t ready. So his brother speed us to school. We went to the classroom as usual. After a short period, we started the soccer tournament, with mixed teams of North Hills and Cary. The fields were still a bit wet from last night, so it was a bit slippery. It was also a bit cold.There were six teams, and the green team won. After playing sports, we had a short break. We could either talk, play on the basketball courts, or play with a soccer ball. After the break, we had the choice of two classes. One was environmental class, and the other was drama class. I was in the environmental class. In this class, we made adobe bricks. These were bricks made of straw and dirt in a wooden blocks. First some straw was put in after it had been ripped into small pieces. Then we shoveled the dirt into the block, and mixed the straw with the dirt. After that, we mixed some water into the mixture. Using boots, we pounded the mud in the same way grapes are pounded for wine. After that, there were molds for us to put the mud in, and we left the bricks on the ground to dry out. There was a short break in, in which we drank a bit of mate. We then had lunch, where we had the choice of pasta, salad, desserts ranging from jello to alfajores, with drinks as well. After lunch, we had more free time, which we spent talking with each other and our exchange students. For the start of gym class, we split up into different groups to make towers made out of newspaper. Then we played more sports afterwards with our exchange students until school ended.
–Han
